AeroRomance Series Volume 2

By Telma Cortez and Ray Ronan

 

The love lives of the crew of VisionAire are unzipped in this collection of four stories. Microburst, Severe Clear, Extended Duty, Hard Love.

Dear Reader,

I’m Telma Cortez, Head Flight Attendant for VisionAire. I love flying and I adore many of the people I work with. It’s an unusual place to work, it can leave you beaten and exhausted, working up there at altitude takes it out of you, but it has its rewards. And those are the moments I want to share with you.

I’ve seen it all; overnight love affairs with room keys exchanged and silent smiles at the breakfast buffet. Long term colleagues becoming long term lovers, short term lovers becoming long term colleagues with all the angst that can bring.

This can be a high speed job and we work hard but play hard. Romance is never too far away and is often stratospheric for the crew of VisionAire not just because our airline is unique, but because aviation is a close knit world where the kinship you feel with your fellow aviators can be life changing. Entrusted with a fifty million dollar plane, you and the rest of the crew take it far across the globe and if you are lucky, you deplane somewhere nice, knowing you have a job well done and proud of it. And the best part is, you did it together.

It's this bonding that often leads to the intimate moments we enjoy. So come with me and the rest of your crew on our AeroRomance adventures.

I am working on much more than just a few short stories, so just when you think you know our crew you will see a side to them you never imagined. I have official music for the series now too from Krafted Riddim Records. An ultra cool lover’s rock/reggae band who performed at the Brit Awards this year. Their music is free to download too on soundcloud.

We are working on a full length book, and something big and exciting coming this way in LA in the new year.

So join me on our stratospheric stage on the Theatre In The Sky.

I hope you enjoy AeroRomance.

TC

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Alternate Pages A Writers Publisher
• Release date: Jul 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497706491

Book preview

Rumours

Hello, it’s me, Telma. Everything is fine at VisionAire; its business as usual with the sole exception of poor Captain Anderson. It’s really a shame, you know, what happened to him. We all share a little of the blame, but there really was no malice in what happened. It was just rumours and idle gossip and never should have gone so far. In our close-knit aviation life, gossip can be a problem. It’s a sobering thought that just a few harmless words can have near tragic consequences.  We say things every day without thinking, never realizing that words can also be weapons that hurt even though they were never intended to do so.

Did you ever stand idly by and watch something really stupid happen?  Did you wish later that you had intervened, even though you knew that anything you tried to do would probably have made things worse?  I have, and now I have to tell someone because I feel so guilty. This is why I’m writing to you about it.

Chris Anderson was a new hire, but he fit right in and everyone quickly came to adore him. He was just as handsome as Grant and some of our other pilots...but in a totally different way. Just a tad older than the others, he had the rugged good looks of an action adventure movie star. With a craggy face, he looked like the wrong guy to tangle with. The only time I saw his lethal potential was at a restaurant in New York when he first came onboard our aircraft. Charles Stross, our CEO and chief hunk at VisionAire, had offered to buy dinner for the whole crew at the beginning of a four-day mandated crew rest.

The entire crew (Captain Grant Edwards was doing Captain Anderson’s flight checks) was taken to an expensive restaurant in Manhattan. As we approached the entrance, we heard screams from across the street, and saw a flamboyantly dressed man slapping a young girl who was obviously a prostitute. It was a brutal beating, and Chris excused himself from the group. He crossed the four lanes of traffic in just a few strides, catching the out-flung hand of the pimp, who was about to strike the girl again. Grant (Captain Edwards) started to go to Chris’s aid, but Charles held him back. Trust me Grant, Charles said, the only one who needs any help is the pimp. Charles smiled and we looked at him in amazement. Then there was another cry from across the street. To our shock it was that of a man. The pimp was on his knees and begging Chris to let him go. Chris asked the girl to leave, and stood watching as she reluctantly fled the scene. We never saw what actually happened, but the pimp exited stage left in another direction.

When Chris returned, Charles smiled at him. You know she’ll be right back with him in an hour, right?

I know, said Chris, but he won’t hit her where I can see him anymore. Shall we?? suggested Chris, holding his arm out for me. He was totally unruffled. His dinner jacket wasn’t even mussed.

Chris proved to be a charming dinner companion, and had a large stock of funny tales about people from around the world that kept us all laughing. Charles let him select the wine for dinner; he had a particular fondness for Argentine varieties. Charles challenged his knowledge of the wines, being the true connoisseur that he is, but Chris proved up to the task and we all got an interesting explanation of why Argentine wines are so delicious. He went into great detail, describing how the vines had been transplanted from France, and how the acid soil of the foothills of the Andes was the perfect place for wine grapes to be grown. It was an entertaining discussion, and it changed the way I order wine forever. There was no further mention of the pimp or of Charles’ strange comment about the pimp needing help.

Chris was single, and it wasn’t very long before one of our lovely attendants managed to entice him to her bed. We spend a great deal of time away from home. It’s only natural that the unattached women (and some of the attached ones) take comfort where they can find it on our grueling schedule. Of course, there is no escaping the gossip that ripples through the organization. It’s human nature and not one of the things we really condone...but how does one stop it?

––––––––

Before long, we all knew that Chris was built like a serious athlete, and that there were unexplained scars on his chest and belly that were positively not the kind one gets in a traffic accident. I saw them for myself when I dropped by early to give him a lift to the airport for a flight from La Guardia to London. I caught him fresh from the shower. He still had shaving cream behind his ear when he came to his hotel room door.  He wore only a towel slung low around his waist, and my hormones kicked into high gear when I saw his naked chest. I don’t mind admitting that if we hadn’t been due for duty I would have done my damnedest to find out what was under that towel...his chiseled body was amazing.

Chris apologized and excused himself, but not before he noticed me staring at what were obviously healed bullet wounds and at least two stab wounds. Trophies of a misspent youth, he said with his usual charming smile.  I used to work for the government." It was all the explanation he offered and was not something I thought I should push. He went back to finish getting ready and I made coffee for us. My libido was in overdrive, in spite of the scars. Chris Anderson was definitely an Alpha Male.

Mid-summer last, Tamara Wilkinson, a leggy attractive blonde with a gorgeous figure and a brilliant smile, was Senior Flight Attendant on the flight to St. Thomas. I was going with Charles to the summer house of a friend of his for a well-deserved vacation and we, of course, had favored seats in First Class. It was Chris’s first flight as Pilot in Command. Being the owner and CEO of VisionAire has its perks, and we boarded the flight early. Charles strode around the outside of the aircraft with Chris during the preflight check, and I could see them talking as they conducted their inspection. Tamara brought me a glass of champagne and sat next to me as we waited for Chris and Charles to come back on board. She was quite taken with the new Captain and wanted me to tell her as much about him as I could. I kept the story about his scars to myself. It was plain to me that Tamara’s interest was more than just a passing one, and I felt that she would find out about them in her own time. Why take all the mystery out of it for her?

The approach and landing to STT (Cyril E. King Airport) was textbook perfect, the seven thousand foot runway